WHEN I WAS A BOY A long time ago!

I was born in January 1945. When I was a boy I had at least one birthday in five different countries including Egypt, Cyprus, Mauritius, East Africa & England , with my ninth birthday in Western Australia.

I LEARNED TO SWIMIN THE MIDDLE OF THE INDIAN OCEAN!

As an eight year old, in 1954, I learned to swim in the middle of the Indian Ocean - in the swimming pool on﻿board the P&O passenger ship S.S.Himalaya.

P&O HIMALAYAYouTube

FIRST WOODMORE'S IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

The arrival of my family in Western Australia on the Himalaya is recorded on the Museum of Western Australia Welcome Walls in Fremantle.

FOND MEMORIES OF THE JARRAH FOREST AND MY DALMATIAN DOGS Jarrahdale Western Australia

Stepping Stones by Rex Woodmore. SOLD

My fondest childhood memories are those of when I lived on our orchard in Jarrahdale Western Australia, surrounded by the tall Jarrah trees full of birds. ​

​My experience living in the middle of the Jarrah forest, much later in life, influenced my decission to become a Visual artist specializing in painting trees, flowers, birds & animals.

Forest Freedom by Rex Woodmore

'Wagtails Welcome' by Rex Woodmore

​​My best friends were my Dalmatian dogs. I would eander around in the bush for hours with them, get lost in the bush and say to the dogs 'Home!' and they would get me back safely. Sadly they were poisoned when they ate a poisoned rabbit.

EVENTS MAKE THE MANLooking back

Looking back over my life, I recognize the events that shaped my character, fed my enquiring mind and influenced my interest in things of intrigue, the wonders of nature and treasure hunting.

Today, I am a Christian, Australian, Creationist, Environmentalist, Mineral Prospector, SCUBA Diver, Artist, Poet, Husband, Father & Happy Camper and believe it or not-The son of a British Spy!......Cool Eh?

ON HIS MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICEMy Dad was a British spy!

After Dad died, it was revealed that his job as a Government Lands Officer was a cover story for his Military Intelligence work , with the PDU (Photographic Development Unit) Codenamed MI4….. My Dad was a British spy!

The James Bond character was MI6 with a licence to kill.​I don’t know about a licence to kill but Dad did carry a revolver & certainly had a licence to travel and take his family with him. I had at least one birthday in 5 different countries before I arrived in Australia at 9years old...Egypt, Cyprus, Mauritius and East Africa..... Going to Egypt we were the only civilians on a naval ship.​When we arrived in Kenya, it was the start of what became known as the Mau-Mau uprising between 1952 & 1960, involving the Kikuyu people who coerced servants, cooks & labourers, to murder their white employers. Today most Kikuyu claim to be Christian. But back then, forced to swear allegiance to the Mau-Mau, they drank blood in a satanic ritual.Dad slept with his revolver under his pillow. One night intruders stole the clock from beside Dad’s bed. We awoke to our African cook shouting in Swahili ‘Bad men Bwana-Bad men’. Dad, the ‘Bwana or Boss’ leapt out of bed & fired into the bush after the ‘Bad men’.It was a moonlight night, so Dad was able to identify one of them in a police line-up. He was in custody for the murder of another white family.

From then on, our mud brick house, in the midst of Banana palms on the edge of the jungle, was booby trapped with strings tied to tin cans. If they rattled in the trees, the resident family of noisy monkeys in the coconut palms would have soon awoken us with their screeching.

I have wonderful memories & it never seemed odd that Dad always carried a Webley revolver & used a Morse Code Kit.

Morse Code Kit

Webley Service Revolver

BRITISH MILITARY INTELLIGENCEThe Secret Service

The Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) was a department of the BritishWar Office. My Dad, Philip Reginald Woodmore, was with the Photographic Development Unit (PDU) which was established on 19th January 1940 (Codenamed MI4).​It was renamed Photographic Interpretation Unit (PIU) on 11th July 1940.

Through a series of War Ministry reorganisations the PIU was renamed the Central Interpretation Unit (CIU) on 7th January 1941 and changed again to the Joint Air Photographic Intelligence centre (UK) JAPIC [UK] in August 1947.

SECTIONS OF DMIDirectorate of Military Intelligence

- MI1: Distribution of reports, intelligence records - Interception and cryptanalysis - The Secret Service/SIS - Communications security - Wireless telegraphy - Personnel and finance - Security, deception and counter intelligence.- MI2: Originally responsible for geographic information on Middle and Far East, Scandinavia, the Americas (excluding Canada), Spain, Portugal, Italy, Liberia, Tangier, the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire, Trans-Caucasus, Arabia, Sinai, Abyssinia, North Africa (excluding French and Spanish possessions), Egypt, and the Sudan. After World War I its role has been changed to handle Russian and Scandinavian intelligence. These functions were absorbed into MI3 in 1941.- MI3: Originally responsible for geographic information on The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Morocco, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Also responsible for Military translations. After World War I, its role was changed to intelligence in Europe, after 1941 including the Baltic states, USSR and Scandinavia- MI4: Originally responsible for responsible for aerial reconnaissance, interpretation and the removal of landmines. Operations of MI4 officially ceased in September 1947- MI5: Domestic Counterintelligence and Security- MI6: Foreign Intelligence and Security- MI7: Originally responsible for responsible for censorship - foreign and domestic propaganda, including press releases concerning army matters - translation and (from 1917) regulation of foreign visitors - foreign press propaganda and review. Now defunct.- MI8: Originally responsible for Interception and Interpretation of Communications- MI9: Originally responsible for aiding resistance fighters in enemy occupied territory, recovering (escape and evasion) Allied troops who found themselves behind enemy lines, debriefing of escaped British PoWs, interrogation of enemy PoWs- MI10: Originally responsible for weapons and technical analysis during World War II.- MI11: Originally responsible for protecting British troops against the enemy agents amongst civilian population during and in the theatre of war.- MI12: Liaison with censorship organisations in Ministry of Information, military censorship.- MI13: Never used.- MI14: Originally responsible for Germany and German-occupied territories (aerial photography until Spring 1943). Originally part of MI3.- MI15: Aerial photography. In the Spring of 1943, aerial photography moved to the Air Ministry and MI15 became air defence intelligence.- MI16: Scientific Intelligence (established in 1945)- MI17: Secretariat for Director of Military Intelligence from April 1943.- MI18: Never used.- MI19: Enemy prisoner of war interrogation and debriefing (formed from MI9 in December 1941).- MI20 - MI25 remain classified (or have never existed at all).

Most of this information is still shrouded in mystery. A couple of years ago my brother contected DMI under the freedom of information, asking about Dad but alltey would say was "Yes, he was with MI4 & all we can say is that he was involved in some sort of training"(Dad was a linguist, an expert in all forms of weaponary and a photographer who developed his own photos and movies)

The fictional James Bond was MI6

British Secret Intelligence WW2YouTube

I WAS BORN 28thJANUARY 1945:

Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital, London.

My first utterance was lost amongst the wailing of the air raid sirens. Having been just shaken from the womb by the last of Hitler’s bombs on London, I was the second son born into a British military family. Mum was the daughter of Sergeant-Major Thomas William Hall and Dad who, himself had been a Sergeant Major, was the son of Captain Phillip Thomas Woodmore.

EGYPT

I remember nothing of my first years in England. My first memory, as a three year old in Egypt, is of my standing, peering through the wrought iron railings of a balcony, looking down on a slim olive skinned man, dressed in a long white gown and a flat, brimless white hat. My attention had been drawn to him by the unfamiliar sound, above that of the chirping cicadas, of the scratching of his crudely fashioned straw broom, as he meticulously swept clean, the paved courtyard below me.